Technology

It was a lot easier to pretend to be a good person when every moral failure you make wasn't broadcast around the world the moment it was discovered. Case and point, look into Bill Gates more. He wasn't always a respectful guy, got caught up in the whole "filthy communists" schtick when the government was investigating his company, advocates for more restrictive control of aid distribution favoring manufacturers more than those he's trying to help, conflicts of interest in his charity, opposing twitters ban of Trump after the insurrection, etc.

The information technology industry in the US has always had a thread of Ayn Rand's philosophy running through it. Some of the people who were part of the computer revolution in the 70s and 80s knew her personally, and thought of themselves as Randian heroes (which is to say, they were narcissists). This is sort of a foundational aspect of the culture of Silicon Valley, so it's always been there.

I highly recommend the documentary All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace by Adam Curtis.

you either die a hero or live long enough to see your self become a villain

Power corrupts.

That's a fair question.

I think there's many different - and valid - answers to this, depending on how you look at the question.

I guess you could say that society had a stronger immune system back then to eliminate these bad cells. These days, they run way too freely. It's bad, and i'm not sure whether we need a structural reform or whether we can wriggle through this one.

Capitalism is the death of society and aligns the interests of people and corporations alike towards a race to the bottom for maximum exploitation.

EDIT: Death of society may sound like hyperbole, but it's me just paraphrasing one of the biggest advocates of capitalism in history: Margaret Thatcher, who famously said: "There is no such thing as society, only individuals."

People haven't really changed. As always, power corrupts. When the rewards are great enough, it seems people are often enough willing to compromise their integrity.

Because being an industry leader is more about controlling people rather than whatever it is that your industry produces.

living heck

The link below isn't the fundamental reason, but I think it helps to explain the shift in mindset. With the best of intentions and a desire to innovate and help people live better...the ersartz movement became corrupted by conspicuous consumption and a "disruptor" capitalist mindset:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole_Earth_Catalog

Shareholders want the CEO that gets them more money. If that person doesn't deliver, they don't ask why, they ask when. If they don't like the answer, they get a new CEO. Rinse repeat, here we are.

Except Zuckerberg, of course. He's just evil.

Once you have acquired a certain amount of money and power a cult shows up at your front door with a clone and a video from the grassy knoll. You get in line, or the clone does... That or something about power corrupting, and absolute power corrupting absolutely.

Power corrupts people. On top of that, the capitalist machine isn't satisfied with "just okay" performance. It's infinite growth, or nothing. Once you hit the upper limit of what you can deliver, you start delivering the same, but with a lot of cut corners